Dave Breger

Who was Dave Breger?

Irving David Breger was an American cartoonist who created the syndicated Mister Breger, a gag panel series and Sunday comic strip known earlier as Private Breger and G.I. Joe. The series led to widespread usage of the term "G.I. Joe" during World War II and later. Dave Breger was his signature and the byline on his books. During World War II, his cartoons were signed Sgt. Dave Breger.

Growing up in Chicago, where he was born of native Russian parents, butcher Benjamin Breger and Sophie Passin Breger, only a few weeks after they arrived in the United States from the Ukraine. As a youth, Breger had encounters with the local gangsters while working at his father's sausage factory. In 1926, he acquired his high school diploma from Crane Technical School, where he drew cartoons signed Irving Breger for the school paper. He studied architectural engineering at the University of Illinois and then transferred to Northwestern University, where he edited the campus humor magazine, Purple Parrot, while studying pre-med and psychology. He had no schooling in art or cartooning, and his college cartoons were drawn in a style similar to John Held, Jr.